http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BraXq07kkM
Linda Holmes encourages the other award shows to take a lesson from NPH’s Tony opening, maybe “the greatest awards show opening ever”:
[I]f you’re talking about awards shows in recent memory, [not only] was it the best opener, but it utterly embarrassed just about everything except maybe Jimmy Fallon’s “Born To Run” at the 2010 Emmys. It’s funny, energetic, committed, and ultimately deeply and touchingly warm-hearted.
The next time you’re tempted to give an Oscar host a pass on the basis that it’s an impossible, can’t-win job, and that the lazy, easy, corny, toothless humor that passes for patter is a fundamental of the awards format, and that the jokes can’t be better and the numbers can’t be better and the hosting can’t be better and the crowd can’t get excited, keep in mind that that’s exactly what people who want to keep making lazy awards shows want you to think.
The Dish 